Re: Did Bengalis leave marks of their Culture on West Pakistan?
Bengalis were not in touch with Arabic or Persian literature for long time and big names in Bengali literature were always Hindus. Accordingly, there was very limited Islamic literature available in Bengali. If Islamic literature was translated into Bengali as was done in UP and Hyderabad, the detachment with Urdu didn’t reach this level.
Pakistan government definitely didn’t tackle the situation against Urdu properly. It was only university students who were agitating in Urdu. Common men, farmers, labour class were not aware of the situation, as their children were studying Bengali in schools and there was no restriction to this by government. Even Pakistan government didn’t take any action against the students (4 students only) who tried to create riot during speech of Quaid e Azam in March 1948. One of such students was appointed as Federal Secretary in 1970 by Yahya Khan.
Bengali was promoted in government universities. Bengali writers were given equal representation in Pakistan writers guild forum. Bengali Academy was established under the patronage of Pakistan government. February 21 was declared as public holiday in East Pakistan to commemorate killing of those students who were agitating for Bengali. Shaheed Minar in memory of those students were built using government funds.
All this leniency should have brought some positive goodwill, but the result is before the world.
Professor Dr Syed Sajjad Hussain ( ex Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University and Raj Shahi University) covered all these aspects in his book ‘The Wastes of Time’. The last 4-5 chapters deal with language controversy in detail.
The Wastes of Time: Reflections on the Decline and Fall of East Pakistan